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Companion  Classics. 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago, 


BY 


Hon.  George  F.  Hoar, 

United  States  Senator. 


Perry  Mason  &  Company. 


Companion  Classics. 

ARTHUR  HENRY  HALLAM. 

By  William  Ewart  Gladstone. 

A  BOY  SIXTY  YEARS  AGO, 

By  Hon.  George  F.  Hoar. 


PRICE,  10  CENTS  EACH. 


iO^^^^i^^^ 


Companion  Classics. 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago, 

By 

Hon.  George  F.  Hoar, 

United  States  Senator. 


Reprint  from  The  Youth's  Companion, 
March  io,  17,  24,  1898. 


Boston. 
Perry  Mason  &  Company. 


'"THE  shot  heard  'round  the  world"  was  fired 
near  Concord,  Massachusetts,  and  then  and 
there,  in  a  certain  sense,  the  Nation  was  born. 
Concord,  in  the  early  years  of  the  present  cen- 
tury, was  still  distinctively  American.  At  that 
time,  too,  Emerson,  Hawthorne,  Thoreau  and 
others  of  the  Concord  group,  were  influencing 
literature  almost  as  profoundly  as  the  Fathers 
had  affected  statecraft. 

Simple  and  wholesome  lives,  inspired  alike 
by  virile  patriotism  and  generous  culture,  were 
led  in  this  little  democracy.  Looking  back  on 
bo3'hood,  the  distinguished  senior  Senator  from 
Massachusetts  draws  a  fascinating  picture  of  the 
plain  manners  and  the  great  men. 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 


BELIEVE  that  boys  nowadays  are 
more  manly  and  mature  than  they 
were  in  my  time.  Perhaps  this  is 
partly  because  the  boys  show  more 
gravity  in  my  presence,  now  I  am 
an  old  man,  than  they  did  when  I  was  a  boy 
myself.  But  in  giving  an  account  of  the  life  of 
a  boy  sixty  years  ago,  I  must  describe  it  as  I  saw 
it,  even  if  it  appear  altogether  childish  and 
undignified. 

The  life  and  character  of  a  country  are  deter- 
mined in  a  large  degree  by  the  sports  of  its  boys. 
The  Duke  of  Wellington  used  to  say  that  the 
victory  at  Waterloo  was  won  on  the  playing-fields 
at  Eton.  That  is  the  best  people  where  the  boys 
are  manly  and  where  the  men  have  a  good  deal 
of  the  boy  in  them. 

Perhaps  all  my  younger  readers  do  not  kno\v 
how  much  that  makes  up,  not  only  the  luxury, 
but  the  comfort  of  life,  has  first  come  in  within 
the  memory  of  persons  now  living.  The  house- 
hold life  of  my  childhood  was  not  much  better 
in  those  respects  than  that  of  a  well-to-do  Roman 
or  Greek.  It  had  not  improved  a  great  deal  for 
two  thousand  years.  There  were  no  house- 
warming  furnaces,  and  stoves  were  almost  un- 
known. There  were  no  double  windows,  and 
the  houses  were  warmed  by  open  iires.  There 
were  no  matches. 

There  were  no  water-pipes  in  the  houses,  and 
no  provision  was  made  for  discharging  sewage. 


8  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

There  were  no  railroads,  telegraphs  or  telephones. 
Letter  postage  to  New  York  from  Boston  was 
twenty-five  cents.  None  of  the  modern  agricul- 
tural machinery  then  existed,  not  even  good 
modern  plows.  Crops  were  planted  by  hand  and 
cultivated  with  the  hoe  and  spade.  Vegetables 
were  dug  with  the  hoe,  and  hay  and  grain  cut 
with  the  sickle  or  scythe.  There  were  no  ice- 
houses. The  use  of  ice  for  keeping  provisions 
or  cooling  water  was  unknown. 

My  father  was  well-to-do,  and  his  household 
lived  certainly  as  well  as  any  family  in  the  town 
of  Concord,  where  I  was  born.  I  have  no  doubt 
a  Roman  boy  two  hundred  years  before  Christ, 
or  an  Athenian  boy  four  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  lived  quite  as  well  as  I  did,  if  not  better. 

On  Cold  Winter  Mornings. 

The  boy  got  up  in  the  morning  and  dressed 
himself  in  a  room  into  which  the  cold  air  came 
through  the  cracks  in  the  window.  If  the 
temperature  were  twenty  degrees  below  zero 
outside,  it  was  very  little  higher  inside.  If  he 
were  big  enough  to  make  the  fires,  he  made  his 
way  down-stairs  in  the  dark  of  a  winter  morning 
and  found,  if  the  fire  had  been  properly  raked  up 
the  night  before,  a  few  coals  in  the  ashes  in  the 
kitchen  fireplace.  The  last  person  who  went  to 
bed  the  night  before  had  done  exactly  what 
Homer  describes  as  the  practice  in  Ulysses'  time, 
when  he  tells  us  that  Ulysses  covered  himself 
with  leaves  after  he  was  washed  ashore  in 
Phaiakia : 

"He  lay  down  in  the  midst,  heaping  the  fallen 
leaves  above,  as  a  man  hides  a  brand  in  a  dark 
bed    of    ashes,    at    some    outlying    farm   where 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  9 

neighbors  are  not  near,  hoarding  a  seed  of  fire  to 
save  his  seeking  elsewhere." 

But  first  he  must  get  a  light.  Matches  are  not 
yet  invented.  So  he  takes  from  the  shelf  over 
the  mantelpiece  an  old  tin  or  brass  candlestick 
with  a  piece  of  tallow  candle  in  it,  and  with  the 
tongs  takes  a  coal  from  the  ashes,  and  holds  the 
candle  wick  against  the  coal  and  gives  a  few 
puffs  with  his  breath.  If  he  have  good  luck,  he 
lights  the  wick,  probably  after  many  failures. 

A  First-of-April  Candle. 

My  mother  had  a  very  entertaining  story 
connected  with  the  old-fashioned  way  of  getting 
a  light.  Old  Jeremiah  Mason,  who  was  probably 
the  greatest  lawyer  we  ever  had  in  New  England, 
unless  we  except  Daniel  Webster,  studied  law  in 
my  uncle's  office  and  shared  a  room  in  his  house 
with  another  law  student.  One  April  Fool's  day 
the  two  young  gentlemen  went  out  late  in  the 
afternoon,  and  my  aunt,  a  young  unmarried  girl 
who  lived  with  her  sister,  and  another  girl,  went 
into  the  room  and  took  the  old  half -burnt  candle 
out  of  the  candlestick,  cut  a  piece  of  turnip  to 
resemble  it,  cut  out  a  little  piece  like  a  wick  at 
the  end,  blackened  it  with  ink,  and  put  it  in  the 
candlestick. 

When  Mr.  Mason  came  in  in  the  dark,  he  took 
a  coal  up  wnth  the  tongs  and  put  it  against  the 
wick,  and  puffed  and  puffed,  until  after  a  long 
and  vexatious  trial  he  discovered  what  was  the 
matter.  He  said  nothing  but  waited  for  his 
chum  to  come  in,  who  went  through  the  same 
trial.  When  they  discovered  the  hoax  they 
framed  an  elaborate  complaint  in  legal  jargon 
against  the  two  roguish  girls,  and  brought  them 


lo  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

to  trial  before  a  young  lawyer  of  their  acquaint- 
ance. The  young  ladies  were  found  guilty  and 
sentenced  to  pay  as  a  fine  a  bowl  of  egg-nog. 

Thawing  out  the  Pump. 

After  getting  his  candle  lighted,  the  boy  takes 
dry  kindling,  which  has  been  gathered  the  night 
before,  and  starts  a  fire.  The  next  thing  is  to 
get  some  water.  He  is  lucky  if  the  water  in  the 
old  cast-iron  kettle  which  hangs  on  the  crane  in 
the  fireplace  be  not  frozen.  As  soon  as  the  fire 
is  started  he  goes  outdoors  to  thaw  out  the  pump, 
if  they  have  a  wooden  pump.  But  that  is  all 
frozen  up,  and  he  has  to  get  some  hot  water  from 
his  kettle  to  pour  down  over  the  piston  till  he 
can  thaw  it  out.  Sometimes  he  would  have  an 
old-fashioned  well,  sunk  too  low  in  the  ground 
for  the  frost  to  reach  it,  and  could  get  water 
with  the  old  oaken  bucket. 

He  brings  in  from  out-of-doors  a  pail  or  two 
of  water.  If  there  has  been  a  snow-storm  the 
night  before,  he  has  to  shovel  a  path  to  the 
wood-shed,  where  he  can  get  the  day's  supply  of 
wood  from  outside,  and  then  from  the  doors 
of  the  house  out  to  the  street.  Meantime  the 
woman  whose  duty  it  is  to  get  breakfast  makes 
her  appearance. 

The  wooden  pump,  which  took  the  place  of 
the  old  well  in  many  dooryards,  was  considered 
a  great  invention.  We  all  looked  with  huge 
respect  upon  Sanford  Adams  of  Concord,  who 
invented  it,  and  was  known  all  over  the  country. 

He  was  quite  original  in  his  way.  The  story 
used  to  be  told  of  him  that  he  called  at  my 
father's  house  one  day  to  get  some  advice  as  to  a 
matter  of  law.     Father  was  at  dinner  and  went 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  1 1 

to  the  door  himself.  Mr.  Adams  stated  his  case 
in  a  word  or  two  as  he  stood  on  the  door-step, 
to  which  father  gave  him  his  answer,  the  whole 
conversation  not  lasting  more  than  two  minutes. 

He  asked  Mr.  Hoar  what  he  should  pay,  and 
father  said,  "Five  dollars."  Mr.  Adams  paid  it 
at  once,  and  father  said,  "By  the  way,  there  is 
a  little  trouble  with  my  pump.  It  does  not 
draw  water.  Will  you  just  look  at  it  ?  "  So  Mr. 
Adams  went  around  the  corner  of  the  shed, 
moved  the  handle  of  the  pump,  and  put  his  hand 
down  and  fixed  a  little  spigot  which  was  in  the 
side,  which  had  got  loose,  and  the  pump  worked 
perfectly.  Father  said,  "  Thank  you,  sir."  To 
which  Adams  replied:  "It  will  be  five  dollars, 
Mr.  Hoar,"  and  father  gave  him  back  the  same 
bill  he  had  just  taken. 

I  am  afraid  that  the  sympathy  of  the  people 
who  told  the  story  was  with  the  pump-maker 
and  not  with  the  lawyer. 

The  use  of  '*  Tin  Kitchens." 

The  great  kitchen  fireplace  presented  a  very 
cheerful  appearance  compared  with  the  black 
range  or  stove  of  to-day.  It  was  from  six  to  eight 
or  ten  feet  wide,  with  a  great  chimney.  In  many 
houses  you  could  stand  on  the  hearth  and  look  up 
the  chimney  and  see  the  stars  on  a  winter  night. 
Across  the  fireplace  hung  an  iron  crane,  which 
swung  on  a  hinge  or  pivot,  from  which  hung  a 
large  number  of  what  were  called  pothooks  and 
trammels.  From  these  were  suspended  the  great 
kettles  and  little  kettles  and  the  ^griddles  and 
pots  and  boilers  for  the  cooking  processes. 

The  roasting  was  done  in  a  big  "tin  kitchen," 
which  stood  before  the  fire,  in  which  meats  or 


12  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

poultry  were  held  by  a  large  iron  spit,  which 
pierced  them  and  which  could  be  revolved  to 
present  one  side  after  the  other  to  the  blaze. 
Sometimes  there  was  a  little  clockwork  which 
turned  the  spit  automatically,  but  usually  it 
was  turned  round  from  time  to  time  by  the  cook. 
As  you  know,  they  used  to  have  in  England 
little  dogs  called  turnspits,  trained  to  turn  a 
wheel  for  this  purpose.  A  little  door  in  the 
rear  of  this  tin  kitchen  gave  access  for  basting 
the  meat.  In  the  large  trough  at  the  bottom 
the  gravy  was  caught. 

No  boy  of  that  day  will  think  there  is  any 
flavor  like  that  of  roast  turkey  and  chicken  or  of 
the  doughnuts  and  pancakes  or  griddle-cakes 
which  were  cooked  by  these  open  fires. 

By  the  side  of  the  fireplace,  with  a  flue  entering 
the  chimney,  was  a  great  brick  oven,  big  enough 
to  bake  all  the  bread  needed  by  a  large  family 
for  a  week  or  ten  days.  The  oven  was  heated 
by  a  brisk  fire  made  of  birch  or  maple  or  some 
very  rapidly  burning  wood.  When  the  coals 
were  taken  out,  the  bread  was  put  in,  and  the 
oven  was  shut  with  two  iron  doors.  The  baking- 
day  was  commonly  Saturday. 

Baked  Beans  for  Sunday. 

When  the  bread  was  taken  out  Saturday  after- 
noon it  was  usual  to  put  in  a  large  pot  of  beans 
for  the  Sunday  dinner.  They  were  left  there  all 
night  and  the  oven  was  opened  in  the  morning 
and  enough  came  out  for  breakfast,  when  there 
was  put  into  the  oven  a  pot  of  Indian  pudding, 
which  was  left  with  the  rest  of  the  beans  for  the 
Sunday  dinner. 

The  parlor  fire  was  a  very  beautiful  sight,  with 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  13 

the  big  logs  and  the  sparkling  walnut  or  oak 
wood  blazing  up.  Some  of  the  housekeepers  of 
that  time  had  a  good  deal  of  skill  in  arranging 
the  wood  in  a  fireplace  so  as  to  make  of  it  a 
beautiful  piece  of  architecture.  Lowell  describes 
these  old  fires  very  well  in  his  ballad,  "The 
Courtin':" 

A  fireplace  filled  the  room's  one  side 

With  half  a  cord  o'  wood  in  — 
There  warn't  no  stoves  (tell  comfort  died) 

To  bake  ye  to  a  puddin'. 

The  wannut  logs  shot  sparkles  out 

Towards  the  pootiest,  bless  her  ! 
An'  leetle  flames  danced  all  about 

The  chiny  on  the  dresser. 

A^in'  the  chimbley  crooknecks  hung, 

An'  in  amongst  'em  rusted 
The  ole  queen's  arm  thet  Gran'ther  Young 

Fetched  back  from  Concord  busted. 

We  did  not  have  fireplaces  like  this  in  my 
father's  house,  although  they  were  common  in 
the  farmers'  houses  round  about.  We  ought  to 
have  had  the  ''ole  queen's  arm."  My  great-grand- 
father, Abijah  Pierce  of  Lincoln,  was  at  Concord 
bridge  in  the  Lincoln  company  of  which  his  son- 
in-law,  Samuel  Hoar,  was  lieutenant.  He  had 
been  chosen  colonel  of  the  regiment  of  the 
minutemen  the  day  before,  but  had  not  qualified 
and  had  not  got  his  accoutrements  ;  and  so  he 
went  into  battle  armed  with  nothing  but  a  cane. 
He  crossed  the  bridge,  and  from  one  of  two 
British  soldiers  who  lay  wounded  and  dying, 
took  a  cartridge-box  and  musket,  which  he  used 
during  the  day  and  preserved  for  many  years.  I 
suppose  it  was  the  first  trophy  of  the  Revolution. 
A  great  many  years  afterward  one  of  the  neighbors 
borrowed  the  musket  of  my  uncle  to  take  to  a 


14  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

Comwallis,  and  it  was  lost  and  never  recovered. 
I  would  give  its  weight  in  gold  to  get  it  back. 
In  the  coldest  weather  the  heat  did  not  come 
out  a  great  way  from  the  hearth,  and  the  whole 
family  gathered  close  about  the  fire  to  keep 
warm.  It  was  regarded  as  a  great  breach  of 
good  manners  to  go  between  any  person  and  the 
fire.  The  fireplace  was  the  centre  of  the  house- 
hold, and  was  regarded  as  the  type  and  symbol 
of  the  home.  The  boys  all  understood  the  force 
of  the  line : 

strike  for  your  altars  and  your  fires ! 

I  wonder  if  any  boy  among  my  young  readers 
nowadays  would  be  stirred  by  an  appeal  to 
strike  for  his  furnace  or  his  air-tight  stove. 

When  Play  was  Forbidden. 

Sunday  was  kept  with  Jewish  strictness.  The 
boys  were  not  allowed  to  go  out-of-doors  except 
to  church.  They  could  not  play  at  any  game  or 
talk  about  matters  not  pertaining  to  religion. 
They  were  not  permitted  to  read  any  books 
except  such  as  were  ''good  for  Sunday."  There 
were  very  few  religious  story-books  in  those 
days,  and  what  we  had  were  of  a  dreary  kind ; 
so  the  boy's  time  hung  heavy  on  his  hands. 

"Pilgrim's  Progress,"  with  its  rude  prints, 
was,  however,  a  great  resource.  "We  conned  it 
over  and  over  again,  and  knew  it  by  heart.  An 
elder  brother  of  mine  who  was  very  precocious 
was  extremely  fond  of  it,  especially  of  the 
picture  of  the  fight  between  Apollyon  and 
Christian,  where  the  fiend  with  his  head  covered 
with  stiff,  sharp  bristles  "straddled  clear  across 
the  road  "  to  stop  Christian  in  his  way. 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  15 

Old  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher,  who  had  his  stiff  gray 
hair  cropped  short  all  over  his  head,  made  a  call 
at  our  house  one  afternoon.  "While  he  was  waiting 
for  my  mother  to  come  down,  the  little  fellow 
came  into  the  room  and  took  a  look  up  at  the 
doctor,  and  then  trotted  round  to  the  other  side 
and  looked  up  at  him  again.  He  said,  "I  think, 
sir,  you  look  like  Apollyon." 

The  doctor  was  infinitely  amused  at  being 
compared  to  the  personage  of  whom,  in  his  own 
opinion  and  that  of  a  good  many  other  good 
people,  he  was  then  the  most  distinguished 
living  antagonist. 

The  church  was  an  old-fashioned  wooden 
building,  painted  yellow,  of  Dutch  architecture, 
with  galleries  on  three  sides,  and  on  the  fourth 
a  pulpit  with  a  great  sounding-board  over  it, 
into  which  the  minister  got  by  quite  a  high 
flight  of  stairs.  Just  below  the  pulpit  was  the 
deacons'  seat,  where  the  four  deacons  sat  in  a  row. 
The  pews  were  old-fashioned  square,  high  pews, 
reaching  up  almost  to  the  top  of  the  head  of  a 
boy  ten  years  old  when  he  was  standing  up. 

The  seats  were  without  cushions  and  with 
hinges.  When  the  people  stood  up  for  prayer 
the  seats  were  turned  up  for  greater  convenience 
of  standing,  and  when  the  prayer  ended  they 
came  down  all  over  the  church  with  a  slam,  like 
a  small  cannonade. 

A  Startling  Command. 

One  Sunday,  in  the  middle  of  the  sermon,  the 
old  minister.  Doctor  Ripley,  stood  up  in  the 
pulpit  and  said  in  a  loud  voice,  "Simeon,  come 
here.  Take  your  hat  and  come  here."  Simeon 
was  a  small  boy  who  lived  in  the  doctor's  family 


1 6  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

and  sat  in  the  gallery.  We  boys  all  supposed 
that  Simeon  had  been  playing  in  church,  or  had 
committed  some  terrible  offence  for  which  he 
was  to  be  punished  in  sight  of  the  whole 
congregation. 

Simeon  came  down  trembling  and  abashed, 
and  the  doctor  told  him  to  go  home  as  fast  as  he 
could  and  get  the  Thanksgiving  Proclamation. 
The  doctor  filled  up  the  time  as  well  as  he  could 
with  an  enormously  long  prayer,  until  the  boy 
got  back.  Simeon  confessed  to  some  of  the  boys 
that  he  had  been  engaged  in  some  mischief  just 
before  he  was  called,  and  he  was  terribly  afraid 
the  doctor  had  caught  him. 

This  old  church  with  its  tower,  j^ellow  spire, 
old  clock  and  weathercock,  seems  to  me  as  I 
look  back  on  it  to  have  been  a  very  attractive 
piece  of  architecture.  It  was  that  church  which 
suggested  to  Emerson  the  leading  thought  in 
one  of  his  most  famous  poems,  "  The  Problem." 

Announcing  the  Banns. 

In  those  days,  when  people  were  to  be  married 
the  law  required  notice  to  be  given  of  their 
intention  by  proclaiming  it  aloud  in  the  church 
three  Sundays  in  succession.  So  just  before  the 
service  began,  the  old  town  clerk  would  get  up 
and  proclaim:  "There  is  a  marriage  intended 
between  Mr.  John  Brown  of  this  town  and  Miss 
Sarah  Smith  of  Sudbury,"  and  there  was  great 
curiosity  in  the  congregation  to  hear  the  announce- 
ment. The  town  clerk  in  my  boyhood  had  been 
a  wealthy  old  bachelor  for  whom  the  young 
ladies  had  set  their  caps  in  vain  for  two  genera- 
tions. One  day  he  astonished  the  congregation 
by  proclaiming  :   "  There  is  a  marriage  intended 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  1 7 

between  Dr.  Abiel  Key  wood  "  —  which  was  his 
own  name  —  **  and  Miss  Lucy  P.  Fay,  both  of 
Concord."  That  was  before  I  can  remember, 
as  his  boys  were  about  my  age. 

Doctor  Ripley,  the  minister  in  Concord,  was 
an  old  man  who  had  been  settled  there  during 
the  Revolutionary  War,  and  was  over  the  parish 
sixty-two  years.  He  was  an  excellent  preacher 
and  scholar,  and  his  kindly  despotism  was  sub- 
mitted to  by  the  whole  tow^n.  His  way  of 
pronouncing  would  sound  very  queer  now, 
though  it  was  common  then.  I  well  remember 
his  reading  the  lines  of  the  hymn  — 

Let  every  critter  jine 

To  praise  the  eternal  God. 

Survivors  of  the  Revolution. 

Scattered  about  the  church  were  the  good  gray 
heads  of  many  survivors  of  the  Revolution  —  the 
men  who  had  been  at  the  bridge  on  the  19th  of 
April,  and  who  made  the  first  armed  resistance  to 
the  British  power.  They  were  very  striking  and 
venerable  figures,  w4th  their  queues  and  knee- 
breeches  and  shoes  with  shining  buckles.  Men 
were  more  particular  about  their  apparel  in  those 
days  than  we  are  now.  They  had  great  stateliness 
of  behavior,  and  admitted  of  little  familiarity. 

They  had  heard  John  Buttrick's  order  to  fire, 
which  marked  the  moment  when  our  country 
was  born.  The  order  was  given  to  British  sub- 
jects. It  was  obeyed  by  American  citizens. 
Among  them  was  old  Master  Blood,  who  saw 
a  ball  strike  the  water  when  the  -.British  fired 
their  first  volley.  I  heard  many  of  the  old  men 
tell  their  stories  of  the  Battle  of  Concord,  and 
of  the  capture  of  Burgoyne. 


1 8  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

I  lay  down  on  the  grass  one  summer  afternoon, 
when  old  Amos  Baker  of  Ivincoln,  who  was  in 
the  Lincoln  Company  on  the  19th  of  April,  told 
me  the  whole  story.  He  was  very  indignant 
at  the  claim  that  the  Acton  men  marched  first 
to  attack  the  British  because  the  others  hesitated. 
He  said,  "It  was  because  they  had  bagnets 
[bayonets].     The  rest  of  us  hadn't  no  bagnets." 

How  Jonathan  "Got  Up." 

One  day  a  few  years  later,  when  I  was  in 
college,  I  walked  up  from  Cambridge  to  Concord, 
through  Lexington,  and  had  a  chat  with  old 
Jonathan  Harrington  by  the  roadside.  He  told 
me  he  was  on  the  Common  when  the  British 
Regulars  fired  upon  the  Lexington  men.  He  did 
not  tell  me  then  the  story  which  he  told  after- 
ward at  the  great  celebration  at  Concord  in  1850. 
He  and  Amos  Baker  were  the  only  survivors  who 
were  there  that  day.  He  said  he  was  a  boy 
about  fifteen  years  old  on  April  19,  1775.  He 
was  a  fifer  in  the  company.  He  had  been  up  the 
greater  part  of  the  night  helping  get  the  stores 
out  of  the  way  of  the  British,  who  were  expected, 
and  went  to  bed  about  three  o'clock,  very 
tired  and  sleepy.  His  mother  came  and  pounded 
with  her  fist  on  the  door  of  his  chamber,  and 
said,  "Git  up,  Jonathan!  The  Reg'lars  are 
comin'  and  somethin'  must  be  done !  " 

Governor  Briggs  repeated  this  anecdote  in  the 
old  man's  presence  at  Concord.  Charles  Storey, 
a  noted  wit,  father  of  the  eminent  lawyer, 
Moorfield  Storey,  sent  up  to  the  chair  this  toast : 
"When  Jonathan  Harrington  got  up  in  the 
morning  on  April  19,  1775,  a  near  relative  and 
namesake  of  his  got  up  about  the  same  time  — 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  19 

Brother  Jonathan.  But  his  mother  didn't  call 
him." 

A  very  curious  and  amusing  incident  is  said, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  truly,  to  have  happened  at 
this  celebration.  It  shows  how  carefully  the 
great  orator,  Edward  Everett,  looked  out  for 
the  striking  effects  in  his  speech.  He  turned  in 
the  midst  of  his  speech  to  the  seat  where  Amos 
Baker  and  Jonathan  Harrington  sat,  and 
addressed  them.  At  once  they  both  stood  up, 
and  Mr.  Everett  said,  with  fine  dramatic  effect, 
*'  Sit,  venerable  friends.  It  is  for  us  to  stand  in 
your  presence." 

After  the  proceedings  were  over,  old  Amos 
Baker  was  heard  to  say  to  somebody,  '*  What  do 
you  suppose  Squire  Everett  meant  ?  He  came 
to  us  before  his  speech  and  told  us  to  stand  up 
when  he  spoke  to, us,  and  when  we  stood  up,  he 
told  us  to  sit  down." 

A  Little  Maid  to  Washington. 

So  you  will  understand  how  few  lives  separate 
you  from  the  time  when  our  country  was  born, 
and  the  time  when  all  our  people  were  British 
subjects.  My  mother,  who  died  in  1866,  sat  in 
Washington's  lap  when  he  visited  her  father's 
house  in  her  childhood,  and  remembered  well 
what  he  said  to  her.  A  sister  of  hers,  then  a 
little  girl  eleven  years  old,  went  to  the  door 
when  Washington  took  his  leave,  and  opened  it 
for  him  to  go  out.  He  put  his  hand  on  her  head 
and  said,  "  My  little  lady,  I  wish  you  a  better 
office."  She  dropped  a  courtesy  and  answered, 
quick  as  lightning,  **  Yes,  sir,  to  let  you  in." 

But  to  come  back  to  our  old  meeting-house. 
The  windows  rattled  in  the  winter,  and  the  cold 


20  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

■wind  came  in  through  the  cracks.  There  was 
a  stove  which  was  rather  a  modern  innovation ; 
but  it  did  little  to  temper  the  coldness  of  a  day 
in  midwinter.  We  used  to  carry  to  church  a 
little  foot-stove  with  a  little  tin  pan  in  it,  which 
we  filled  with  coal  from  the  stove  in  the  meeting- 
house, and  the  ladies  of  the  family  would  pass 
it  round  to  each  other  to  keep  their  toes  from 
freezing ;  but  the  boys  did  not  get  much  benefit 
from  it. 


Schooldays  and  Holidays. 

They  had  good  schools  in  Concord,  and  the 
boys  generally  were  good  scholars  and  read  good 
books.  So  whenever  they  thought  fit  they 
could  use  as  good  language  as  anybody;  but 
their  speech  with  one  another  was  in  the  racy, 
pithy  Yankee  dialect,  which  Lowell  has  made 
immortal  in  the  ''Biglow  Papers."  It  was  not 
always  grammatical,  but  as  well  adapted  for 
conveying  wit  and  humor  and  shrewd  sense  as  the 
Scotch  of  Burns. 

The  boys  knew  very  well  how  to  take  the 
conceit  or  vanity  out  of  their  comrades.  In  the 
summer  days  all  the  boys  of  the  village  used  to 
gather  at  a  place  on  the  river,  known  as  Thayer's 
swimming-place,  about  half  a  mile  from  the 
town  pump,  which  was  the  centre  from  which  all 
distances  were  measured  in  those  days.  There 
was  a  little  gravel  beach  where  you  could  wade 
out  a  rod  or  two,  and  then  for  a  rod  or  two  the 
water  was  over  the  boy's  head.  It  then  became 
shallow  again  near  the  opposite  bank.  So  it 
was  a  capital  place  to  learn  to  swim. 

After  they  came  out,  the  boys  would  sit  down 
on  the  bank  and  have  a  sort  of  boys'  exchange, 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  21 

in  which  all  matters  of  interest  were  talked  over, 
and  a  great  deal  of  good-natured  chaff  was 
exchanged.  Any  newcomer  had  to  pass  through 
an  ordeal  of  this  character,  in  which  his  temper 
and  quality  were  thoroughly  tried.  I  remember 
now  an  occasion  which  must  have  happened 
when  I  was  not  more  than  eight  or  ten  years 
old,  when  a  rather  awkward-looking  greenhorn 
had  come  down  from  New  Hampshire  and  made 
his  appearance  at  the  swimming-place.  The  boys, 
one  after  another,  tried  him  by  putting  mocking 
questions  or  attempting  to  humbug  him  with 
some  large  story.  He  received  it  all  with 
patience  and  good  nature  until  one  remark 
seemed  to  sting  him  from  his  propriety.  He 
turned  with  great  dignity  upon  the  offender,  and 
said,  **Was  that  you  that  spoke,  or  was  it  a 
punkin  busted  ?  "  We  all  thought  that  it  was 
well  said,  and  took  him  into  high  favor. 

The  River  Road  to  Billerica. 

I  suppose  the  outdoor  winter  sports  have  not 
changed  much  since  my  childhood.  The  slug- 
gish Concord  River  used  to  overflow  its  banks 
and  cover  the  broad  meadows  for  miles,  where 
we  found  excellent  skating,  and  where  the 
water  would  be  only  a  foot  or  two  in  depth. 
The  boys  could  skate  for  ten  miles  to  Billerica 
and  ten  miles  back,  hardly  going  over  deep 
water,  except  at  the  bridges,  the  whole  way. 

Sleigh-riding  was  then  what  it  is  now.  There 
were  a  few  large  sleighs  owned  in  the  town 
which  would  hold  thirty  or  forty  persons,  and 
once  or  twice  in  the  winter  the  b6ys  and  girls 
would  take  a  ride  to  some  neighboring  town 
when  the  sleighing  was  good , 


22  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

The  indoor  games  were  marbles,  checkers, 
backgammon,  dominoes,  hunt-the-slipper,  blind- 
man's  buff,  and  in  some  houses,  where  they 
were  not  too  strict,  they  played  cards.  High- 
low-jack,  sometimes  called  all-fours  or  seven-up, 
everlasting  and  old  maid  were  the  chief  games 
of  cards.  Most  of  these  games  have  come  down 
from  a  very  early  antiquity. 

The  summer  outdoor  games  were  mumble-the- 
peg,  high-spy,  snap-the-whip,  a  rather  dangerous 
performance,  in  which  a  long  row  of  boys,  with 
the  biggest  boy  at  one  end,  and  tapering  down 
to  the  smallest  at  the  other  end,  would  run  over 
a  field  or  open  space  until  suddenly  the  big  boy 
would  stop,  turn  half  around,  and  stand  still 
and  hold  fast  wnth  all  his  might.  The  result 
was  that  the  boy  next  to  him  had  to  move  a 
very  little  distance,  but  the  little  fellow  at  the 
end  was  compelled  to  describe  a  half-circle  with 
great  rapidity,  and  was  sometimes  hurled  across 
the  field,  and  brought  up  with  a  heavy  fall. 
There  were  thread-the-needle,  hunt-the-red-lion 
and  football,  played  very  much  as  it  is  now, 
except  with  less  system  and  discipline,  and 
various  games  of  ball.  These  games  of  ball  were 
much  less  scientific  and  difficult  than  the  modern 
games.  Chief  were  four-old-cat,  three-old-cat, 
two-old-cat  and  base. 

What  the  Boys  Learned  at  School. 

We  had  fewer  studies  at  our  school  than  now. 
The  boys  who  did  not  go  to  college  learned  to 
read  and  write,  perhaps  an  elementary  history  of 
the  United  States,  and  arithmetic,  and  occasion- 
ally made  some  little  progress  in  algebra.  On 
Saturdays  we    used    to    "speak    pieces."     Our 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  23 

favorites  were  some  spirited  lyric,  like  "  Scots 
Wha  Hae  "  or  Pierpont's  "  Stand,  the  ground's 
your  own,  my  braves,"  "The  boy  stood  on  the 
burning  deck,"  and  "Bernardo  del  Carpio." 
Sometimes,  though  not  often,  some  comic  piece 
was  chosen,  like  "Jack  Downing's  Tax  on  Old 
Bachelors." 

Those  who  fitted  for  college  added  Latin  and 
Greek  to  these  studies.  The  children  were  sent 
to  school  earlier  than  is  the  present  fashion, 
and  had  long  school  hours  and  few  vacations. 
There  were  four  vacations  in  the  year,  of  a  week 
each,  and  three  days  at  Thanksgiving  time. 
Little  account  was  made  of  Christmas.  The 
fashion  of  Christmas  presents  was  almost  wholly 
unknown.  The  boys  used  to  be  allowed  to  go 
out  of  school  to  study  in  the  warm  summer  days, 
and  would  find  some  place  in  a  field,  and  some- 
times up  in  the  belfry  of  the  little  schoolhouse. 
I  remember  studying  Caesar  there  with  George 
Brooks,  afterward  judge,  and  reading  with  him 
an  account  of  some  battle  where  Caesar  barely 
escaped  being  killed,  on  which  Brooks's  com- 
ment  was,  "  I  wish  to  thunder  he  had  been!  " 

In  the  Neighboring  Orchards. 

I  am  afraid  the  boys  did  not  respect  the  prop- 
erty of  the  owners  of  the  neighboring  apple 
orchards,  as  undoubtedly  the  better-trained  boys 
of  modern  times  do  now.  We  understood  the 
law  to  be  that  all  apples  that  grew  on  the 
branches  extending  over  the  highway  were  pub- 
lic property,  and  I  am  afraid  that  when  the 
owner  was  not  about  we  were  not  very  particular 
as  to  the  boundary-line.  This  seems  to  have 
been  a  trait  of  boy  nature  for  generations.     You 


24  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

know  Sidney  Smith's  account  of  the  habit  of 
boys  at  his  school  to  rob  a  neighboring  orchard, 
until  the  farmer  bought  a  large,  savage  bulldog 
for  his  protection.  Some  of  the  big  boys  told 
Sidney  that  if  a  boy  would  get  down  on  his 
hands  and  knees  and  go  backward  toward  the 
dog,  the  dog  would  be  frightened,  and  he  could 
get  the  apples.  He  tried  the  experiment  un- 
successfully, and  with  the  result  that  he 
concluded,  as  he  says,  that  "  it  makes  no  dif- 
ference to  a  bulldog  which  end  of  a  boy  he  gets 
hold  of,  if  he  only  gets  a  good  hold." 

Severe  School  Discipline. 

The  discipline  of  the  schoolmaster  in  those 
days  was  pretty  severe.  For  slight  offences  the 
boys  were  deprived  of  their  recess  or  compelled 
to  study  for  an  hour  after  the  school  was  dis- 
missed. The  chief  weapon  of  torture  was  the 
ferule,  to  the  efi&cacy  of  which  I  can  testify  from 
much  personal  knowledge.  The  master  had  in 
his  desk,  however,  a  cowhide  for  gross  cases. 
I  do  not  remember  knowing  how  that  felt  from 
personal  experience,  but  I  remember  very  well 
seeing  it  applied  occasionally  to  the  big  boys. 

In  the  infant  schools,  which  were  kept  by 
women,  of  course  the  discipline  was  not  expected 
to  be  so  severe.  The  schoolmistress  in  those 
days  wore  what  was  called  a  busk  —  a  flat  piece 
of  lancewood,  hornbeam,  or  some  other  like  tough 
and  elastic  wood,  thrust  into  a  sort  of  pocket  or 
sheath  in  her  dress,  which  came  up  almost  to 
the  chin  and  came  down  below  the  waist.  This 
w^as  intended  to  preserve  the  straightness  and 
grace  of  her  figure.  When  the  small  boy  mis- 
behaved, the  schoolma'am  would  unsheath  this 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  25 

weapon,  and  for  some  time  thereafter  the  culprit 
found  sitting  down  exceedingly  uncomfortable. 

Sometimes  the  sole  of  the  schoolmistress's 
slipper  answered  the  same  purpose,  and  some- 
times a  stick  from  some  neighboring  birch-tree. 
It  all  came  to  pretty  much  the  same  thing  in 
the  end.  The  schoolmistress  knew  well  how  to 
accomplish  her  purpose.  There  was  a  diversity 
of  gifts  but  the  spirit  remained  the  same. 

We  were  put  to  school  much  earlier  than 
children  are  now,  and  were  more  advanced  in 
our  studies  on  the  whole.  I  began  to  study 
Latin  on  my  sixth  birthday.  When  I  was  nine 
years  old  I  was  studying  Greek,  and  had  read 
several  books  of  Virgil.  We  were  not  very 
thorough  Latin  scholars,  even  when  we  entered 
college,  but  could  translate  Virgil  and  Cicero 
and  Caesar  and  easy  Greek  like  Xenophon. 

Boy  Soldiers  and  Real  Soldiers. 

The  boys  occasionally  formed  military  com- 
panies and  played  soldier,  but  these  did  not, 
so  far  as  I  remember,  last  very  long.  There 
was  also  a  company  of  Indians,  who  dressed  in 
long  white  shirts,  with  pieces  of  red  flannel 
sewed  on  them.  They  had  wooden  spears. 
That  was  more  successful,  and  lasted  some  time. 

They  were  exceedingly  fond  of  seeing  the  real 
soldiers.  There  were  two  full  companies  in 
Concord,  the  artillery  and  the  light  infantry. 
The  artillery  had  two  cannon  captured  from  the 
British,  which  had  been  presented  to  the  com- 
pany by  the  legislature  in  honor  of  April  19, 
1775.  When  these  two  companies  paraded,  they 
were  followed  by  an  admiring  train  of  small 
boys  all  day  long,  if  the  boys  could  get  out  of 


26  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

school.  I  remember  on  one  occasion  there  was 
a  great  rivalry  between  the  companies,  and  one 
of  them  got  the  famous  Brigade  Band  from 
Boston,  and  the  other  an  equally  famous  band, 
called  the  Boston  Brass  Band,  in  which  Edward 
Kendall,  the  great  musician,  was  the  player  on 
the  bugle.  A  very  great  day  indeed  was  the 
muster-day,  when  sometimes  an  entire  brigade 
would  be  called  out  for  drill.  These  muster-days 
happened  three  or  four  times  in  my  boyhood  at 
Concord. 

But  the  great  day  of  all  was  what  was  called 
"  Cornwallis,"  which  was  the  anniversary  of  the 
capture  of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown.  There  were 
organized  companies  in  uniform  representing 
the  British  army  and  an  equally  large  number 
of  volunteers,  generally  in  old-fashioned  dress, 
and  with  such  muskets  and  other  accoutrements 
as  they  could  pick  up,  who  represented  the 
American  army.  There  was  a  parade  and  a  sham 
fight  which  ended  as  all  such  fights,  whether 
sham  or  real,  should  end,  in  a  victory  for  the 
Americans,  and  Cornwallis  and  his  troops  were 
paraded,  captive  and  ignominious.  I  quite  agree 
with  Hosea  Biglow  when  he  says,  "There  is  fun  to 
a  Cornwallis,  though  ;  I  aint  a-goin'  to  deny  it." 

"If  the  French  Beat  Us." 

The  boys  cared  little  for  politics,  though  they 
used  to  profess  the  faith  of  their  fathers  ;  but 
every  boy  sometimes  imagined  himself  a  soldier, 
and  his  highest  conception  of  glory  was  to  "lick 
the  British."  I  remember  walking  home  from 
school  with  a  squad  of  little  fellows  at  the  time 
Andrew  Jackson  issued  his  famous  message, 
when  he  threatened  war  if  the  French  did  not 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  27 

pay  us  our  debt.  We  discussed  the  situation 
with  great  gravity,  and  concluded  that  if  the 
French  beat  us,  we  should  have  a  king  to  rule 
over  us. 

Besides  the  two  military  companies,  there  was 
another  called  the  "Old  Shad."  The  law  required 
every  able-bodied  man  of  military  age  to  turn 
out  for  military  training  and  inspection  on  the 
last  Wednesday  in  May  ;  they  turned  out  just  to 
save  the  penalty  of  the  law,  and  used  to  dress  in 
old  clothes,  and  their  awkward  evolutions  were 
the  object  of  great  scorn  to  the  small  boy  of  the 
time. 

A  Lively  Little  Town. 

The  streets  of  Concord  were  made  lively  by 
the  stage-coaches  and  numerous  teams.  There 
were  four  taverns  in  the  town,  all  well  patron- 
ized, with  numerous  sleeping-rooms.  Two  of 
them  had  large  halls  for  dancing.  A  great  many 
balls  were  given,  to  which  persons  came  from 
the  neighboring  towns. 

There  was  an  excellent  fiddler  named  John 
Wesson,  who  continued  to  give  the  benefit  of 
his  talent  to  all  parties,  public  and  private,  down 
to  the  time  of  the  war,  when  he  said  he  would 
not  play  a  dancing  tune  till  the  boys  came  home. 
He  died  soon  after,  and  I  do  not  know  whether 
his  music  was  ever  heard  again.  These  taverns 
were  crowded  with  guests.  One  principal  route 
for  stages  and  teams  to  New  Hampshire, 
Vermont  and  Canada  passed  through  Concord. 

There  were  several  lines  of  stages,  one  from 
Lowell  to  Framingham,  and  two  at  least  from 
Boston.  The  number  of  passengers,  which  now 
are  all  carried  by  rail,  was  so  large  that  extras 


28  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago, 

were  frequently  necessary.  The  teams  were 
very  often  more  than  the  barns  of  the  taverns 
in  the  town  could  accommodate,  and  on  summer 
nights  the  wagons  would  extend  for  long  dis- 
tances along  the  village  street  with  horses  tied 
behind  them. 

The  First  Temperance  Lecture. 

The  sound  of  the  toddy  stick  was  hardly 
interrupted  in  the  barroom  inside  from  morning 
till  night.  The  temperance  reform  had  not 
made  great  headway  in  my  youthful  days.  It 
was  not  uncommon  to  see  farmers,  bearing 
names  highly  respected  in  the  town,  lying  drunk 
by  the  roadside  on  a  summer  afternoon,  or 
straggling  along  the  streets.  The  unpainted 
farmhouses  and  barns  had  their  broken  windows 
stuffed  with  old  hats  or  garments.  I  have  heard 
Nathan  Brooks,  who  delivered  the  first  temper- 
ance lecture  in  the  town,  at  the  request  of  the 
selectmen,  say  that  after  it  was  over  he  and  the 
selectmen  and  some  of  the  principal  citizens  went 
over  to  the  tavern,  and  each  took  a  mug  of  flip. 

There  were  great  quantities  of  huckleberries 
in  the  pastures  about  Concord,  and  the  sweet 
high  blackberries  abounded  by  the  roadside. 
There  were  plenty  of  chestnuts  in  the  woods, 
and  the  walnut,  or  pig-nut,  also  abounded  ;  so 
that  berrying  and  nutting  were  favorite  pastimes. 

When  I  was  a  small  boy  a  party  of  us  went 
down  to  Walden  woods,  afterward  so  famous  as 
the  residence  of  Henry  Thoreau.  There  was  an 
old  fellow  named  Tommy  Wyman,  who  lived  in 
a  hut  near  the  pond,  who  did  not  like  the  idea 
of  having  the  huckleberry-fields  near  him  invaded 
by  the  boys.     He  told  us  it  was  not  safe  for  us 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  29 

to  go  there.  He  said  there  was  an  Indian  doctor 
in  the  woods  who  caught  small  boys  and  cut  out 
their  livers  to  make  medicine.  We  were  terribly- 
frightened,  and  all  went  home  in  a  hurry. 

When  we  got  near  the  town,  we  met  old  John 
Thoreau,  with  his  son  Henry,  afterward  so  well 
known,  and  I  remember  his  amusement  when  I 
told  him  the  story.  He  said,  "If  I  meet  him,  I 
will  run  this  key  down  his  throat,"  producing  a 
key  from  his  pocket.  We  reported  the  occurrence 
at  the  village  store,  but  were  unable  to  excite 
any  interest  in  the  subject. 

Thanksgiving  Days. 

Thanksgiving  was  then,  as  it  is  and  ought  to 
be  now,  the  great  day  of  the  year.  All  the 
children  were  at  home.  The  ambition  of  the 
head  of  the  house  was  to  get  the  largest  turkey 
that  money  could  buy.  No  Thanksgiving  dinner 
was  quite  complete  unless  there  were  a  baby  on 
hand  belonging  to  some  branch  of  the  family,  no 
bigger  than  the  turkey.  The  preparation  for 
Thanksgiving  was  very  interesting  to  the  small 
boy  mind.  A  boiled  or  roasted  turkey,  a  pair 
of  chickens,  chicken  pie,  wonderful  cranberry 
sauce,  a  plum  pudding,  and  all  manner  of  apple 
pies,  mince  pies,  squash  pies,  pumpkin  pies,  and 
nuts,  raisins,  figs  and  noble  apples  made  part  of 
the  feast.  I  suppose  Thanksgiving  customs 
have  changed  less  than  most  others,  except  in 
one  particular.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  a  small 
boy's  stomach  in  this  generation  that  can  hold  a 
tenth  part  of  what  used  to  go  into  mine,  not  only 
on  Thanksgiving  day,  but  on  the  days  before  and 
after.  The  raisins  were  to  be  picked  over,  the 
nuts  and  citron  got  ready,  when  Thanksgiving 


30  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

was  coming  on,  of  all  which  we  took  abundant 
tolls.  The  cold  and  warmed-over  dishes  lasted 
through  the  rest  of  the  week.  I  do  not  know 
what  the  Jewish  festival  or  the  old  Roman 
banquets  might  have  been,  but  they  could  not 
have  equalled  a  New  England  Thanksgiving 
week  in  a  house  in  the  country. 

The  doctor  in  those  days  was  a  terror  to  the 
small  boy.  The  horrible  and  nasty  castor  oil, 
ipecac  and  calomel,  and  the  salts  and  senna, 
sulphur  and  molasses  taken  three  mornings  in 
succession  and  then  missed  three  mornings, 
were  worse  than  any  sickness.  Of  the  last  I 
speak  only  from  hearsay,  not  from  personal 
knowledge.  Then  the  cupping  and  bleeding 
were  fearful  things  to  go  through  or  look  upon. 
We  had  none  of  the  sweet  patent  medicines 
that  the  children  now  cry  for,  and  none  of  the 
smooth  capsules  or  the  pleasant  comfits  that 
turn  medicine  into  confectionery  nowadays. 

Introduced  to  Walter  Scott. 

The  boys  were  not  allowed  in  most  families 
to  read  novels,  even  on  week-days.  My  father 
had  a  great  dislike  to  fiction  of  all  sorts,  and  for  a 
good  while  would  not  tolerate  any  novels  in  the 
house  ;  but  one  winter  day  he  went  to  Pepperell, 
in  the  northern  part  of  the  county,  to  try  a  case 
before  a  sheriff's  jury.  About  the  time  the  case  got 
through  there  came  a  sudden  and  violent  snow- 
storm, which  blocked  up  the  roads  with  deep 
drifts  so  that  he  could  not  get  home  for  two  or 
three  days.  He  had  to  stay  at  a  small  country  tav- 
ern, and  the  time  hung  very  heavily  on  his  hands. 

He  asked  the  landlord  if  he  had  any  books. 
The  only  one  he  could  find  was  a  first  volume 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  31 

of  Scott's  "  Redgauntlet,"  which  was  then  just 
published  in  Boston  by  a  bookseller  named 
Parker,  in  what  was  called  Parker's  revised 
edition.  Father  read  it  with  infinite  delight. 
His  eyes  were  opened  to  the  excellence  of  Scott. 
He  got  home  the  next  day  at  about  noon,  and 
immediately  sent  one  of  the  children  down  to 
the  circulating  library  to  get  the  second  volume. 
He  subscribed  to  Parker's  edition,  and  was  a 
great  lover  of  Scott  ever  after. 

We  were  permitted,  however,  to  read  the 
"  Tales  of  a  Grandfather."  I  hope  the  boys  who 
read  this  paper  will  read  the  "  Tales  of  a  Grand- 
father," especially  the  parts  which  gives  the 
history  of  Scotland.  It  is  a  most  interesting  and 
noble  story.  I  can  remember  now  how  the  tears 
ran  down  my  cheeks  as  I  read  Scott's  descrip- 
tion of  finding  the  bones  of  Robert  Bruce  in  the 
old  abbey  at  Dunfermline  : 

**  As  the  church  would  not  hold  half  the  num- 
bers, the  people  were  allowed  to  pass  through  it 
one  after  another,  that  each  one,  the  poorest  as 
well  as  the  richest,  might  see  all  that  remained 
of  the  great  king,  Robert  Bruce.  Many  people 
shed  tears ;  for  there  was  the  wasted  skull 
which  once  was  the  head,  that  thought  so  wisely 
and  boldly  for  his  country's  deliverance ;  and 
there  was  the  dry  bone  which  had  once  been  the 
sturdy  arm  that  killed  Sir  Henry  de  Bohun, 
between  the  two  armies,  at  a  single  blow  on  the 
evening  before  the  Battle  of  Bannockburn." 

Famous  Concord  Authors. 

There  were  in  Concord  in  my  boyhood  three 
writers  who  afterward  became  very  famous 
indeed  —  Bmerson,    Hawthorne    and    Thoreau. 


32  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

Mr.  IvOwell  said  that  these  three  names  shone 
among  all  others  in  American  literature  as  the 
three  blazing  stars  in  the  belt  of  Orion  shine 
in  the  sky. 

The  whole  town  loved  and  revered  Emerson, 
but  I  fancy  the  people  generally  had  little  notion 
of  his  great  genius.  He  used  to  read  lectures  to 
the  Ivyceum,  and  in  reading  his  books  now  I 
find  a  great  many  passages  which  I  remember  to 
have  heard  him  read  in  my  youthful  days.  In 
one  of  his  lectures  upon  Plato,  he  said  that  he 
turned  everything  to  the  use  of  his  philosophy, 
that  "wife,  children  and  friends  were  all  ground 
into  paint  "  —  alluding  to  Washington  Allston's 
story  of  the  Paint  King  who  married  a  lovely 
maiden  that  he  might  make  paint  of  the  beautiful 
color  of  her  cheeks. 

A  worthy  farmer's  wife  in  the  audience  took 
this  literally,  and  left  the  room  in  high  dudgeon. 
She  said  she  thought  Waldo  Bmerson  might  be 
in  better  business  than  holding  up  to  the  people 
of  Concord  the  example  of  a  wicked  man  who 
ground  his  wife  and  children  into  paint. 

The  Old  Manse  and  Its  Inmates. 

Mr.  Hawthorne  had  published  some  short 
stories  which  had  made  his  name  quite  cele- 
brated. But  his  great  fame  was  still  to  be 
gained.  He  was  poor,  and  had  a  good  deal  of 
difficulty  in  gaining  a  decent  living  for  himself 
and  his  young  wife.  They  lived  in  the  old 
Manse,  which  he  has  described  so  delightfully 
in  his  "  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse." 

His  wife  was  a  great  friend  of  my  oldest  sister, 
and  used  to  visit  in  our  family  before  she  was 
married.     It  was   owing    to    that  circumstance 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  2iZ 

that  the  Hawthornes  came  to  live  in  Concord.  I 
went  up  to  the  house  while  they  were  absent  on 
their  wedding  journey,  when  I  was  a  little  boy, 
to  help  put  things  in  order  for  the  reception  of 
the  young  couple. 

The  furniture  was  very  cheap  ;  a  good  deal  of  it 
was  made  of  common  pine.  But  Mrs.  Hawthorne, 
who  was  an  artist,  had  decorated  it  by  drawings 
and  paintings  on  the  backs  of  the  chairs  and  on 
the  bureaus.  On  bedsteads  and  the  headboard 
of  her  bed  was  a  beautiful  copy,  painted  by 
herself,  of  Guido's  Aurora,  with  its  exquisite 
light  figures  and  horses  and  youths  and  maidens 
flying  through  the  air. 

Mr.  Hawthorne  was  very  silent,  and  hardly 
spoke  in  the  presence  of  any  visitor  with  whom 
he  was  not  very  intimate.  He  was  very  fond  of 
long  walks  and  of  rowing  on  the  river  with 
Thoreau  and  Bllery  Channing. 

Thoreau,  the  Boys'  Friend. 

The  boys  were  all  fond  of  Henry  Thoreau.  I 
went  to  school  with  him  when  I  was  a  little  boy 
and  he  was  a  big  one,  and  afterward  I  was  a 
scholar  in  his  school.  He  was  very  fond  of  small 
boys,  and  used  to  take  them  out  with  him  in  his 
boat,  and  make  bows  and  arrows  for  them,  and 
take  part  in  their  games.  He  liked  also  to  get 
a  number  of  the  little  chaps  of  a  Saturday  after- 
noon, and  go  for  a  long  walk  in  the  woods. 

He  knew  the  best  places  to  find  huckleberries 
and  blackberries  and  chestnuts  and  lilies  and 
cardinal  and  other  rare  flowers.  We  used  to  call 
him  Trainer  Thoreau,  because,  as  "I  have  said, 
the  boys  called  the  soldiers  the  "trainers,"  and 
he  had  a  long,  mea.sured  stride  and  an  erect 


34  ^  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

carriage,  which  made  him  seem  something  like 
a  soldier,  although  he  was  short  and  rather 
ungainly  in  figure.  He  had  a  curved  nose  which 
reminded  one  a  little  of  the  beak  of  a  parrot. 

His  real  name  was  David  Henry  Thoreau, 
although  he  changed  the  order  of  his  first  two 
names  afterward.  He  was  a  great  finder  of 
Indian  arrow-heads,  spear-heads,  pestles,  and 
other  stone  implements  which  the  Indians  had 
left  behind  them,  of  which  there  was  great 
abundance  in  the  Concord  fields  and  meadows. 

He  knew  the  rare  forest  birds  and  all  the  ways 
of  birds  and  wild  animals.  Naturalists  commonly 
know  birds  and  beasts  and  flowers  as  a  surgeon 
who  has  dissected  the  human  body,  or  perhaps 
sometimes  a  painter  who  has  made  pictures  of 
them  knows  men  and  women.  But  he  knew 
birds  and  beasts  as  one  boy  knows  another  —  all 
their  delightful  little  habits  and  fashions.  He 
had  the  most  wonderful  good  fortune.  We  used 
to  say  that  if  anything  happened  in  the  deep 
woods  which  only  came  about  once  in  a  hundred 
years,  Henry  Thoreau  would  be  sure  to  be  on 
the  spot  at  the  time  and  know  the  whole  story. 
I  suppose  you  remember  Emerson's  verses  : 

It  seemed  that  Nature  could  not  raise 

A  plant  in  any  secret  place, 

In  quaking  bog  or  snowy  hill, 

Beneath  the  grass  that  shades  the  rill, 

Under  the  snow,  between  the  rocks, 

In  damp  fields  known  to  bird  and  fox, 

But  he  would  come  in  the  very  hour 

It  opened  in  its  virgin  bower, 

As  if  a  sunbeam  showed  the  place, 

And  tell  its  long-descended  race. 

It  seemed  as  if  the  breezes  brought  him  ; 

It  seemed  as  if  the  sparrows  taught  him  ; 

As  if  by  secret  sight  he  knew 

Where,  in  far  fields,  the  orchis  grew. 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago,  35 

Many  haps  fall  in  the  field 

Seldom  seen  by  wishful  eyes, 

But  all  her  shows  did  Nature  yield, 

To  please  and  win  this  pilgrim  wise. 

He  saw  the  partridge  drum  in  the  woods  ; 

He  heard  the  woodcock's  evening  hymn  ; 

He  found  the  tawny  thrushes'  broods  ; 

And  the  shy  hawk  did  wait  for  him ; 

What  others  did  at  distance  hear. 

And  guessed  within  the  thicket's  gloom. 

Was  shown  to  this  philosopher. 

And  at  his  bidding  seemed  to  come. 

These  lines  fit  Henry  Thoreau  exactly.  Most 
people  think  Emerson  had  him  in  mind  when 
he  wrote  them.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they 
were  written  before  he  knew  Henry  Thoreau. 

I  wonder  how  many  know  the  woodcock's 
evening  hymn.  I  have  known  many  sportsmen 
and  naturalists  who  never  heard  it  or  heard  of  it. 
When  the  female  is  on  her  nest  the  male  wood- 
cock flies  straight  up  into  the  sky,  folds  his 
wings  and  falls  down  through  the  air,  coming 
down  within  a  foot  or  two  of  the  nest  from  which 
he  ascended,  pouring  out  a  beautiful  song,  which 
he  never  sings  at  any  other  time.  He  is  said  to 
be  one  of  the  best  and  sweetest  of  our  song-birds. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  Emerson  did  not 
know  Henry  Thoreau  until  after  Thoreau  had 
been  some  years  out  of  college.  Henry  walked 
to  Boston,  eighteen  miles,  to  hear  one  of  Emer- 
son's lectures,  and  walked  home  again  in  the 
night  after  the  lecture  was  over.  Emerson  heard 
of  it,  and  invited  him  to  come  to  his  house 
and  hear  the  lectures  read  there,  which  he 
did.  People  used  to  say  that  Thoreau  imitated 
Emerson,  and  Lowell  has  made  this  charge  in 
his  satire,  "A  Fable  for  Critics  :  " 

There  comes ,  for  instance  ;  to  see  him's  rare  sport. 

Tread  in  :Enierson's  tracks  with  legs  painfully  short. 


36  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago, 

I  think  there  is  nothing  in  it.  Thoreau's 
style  is  certainly  fresh  and  original.  His  tastes 
and  thoughts  are  his  own.  His  peculiarities  of 
bearing  and  behavior  came  to  him  naturally 
from  his  ancestors  of  the  isle  of  Guernsey. 

I  have  heard  Thoreau  say  in  private  a  good 
many  things  which  afterward  appeared  in  his 
writings.  One  day  when  we  were  walking,  he 
leaned  his  back  'against  a  rail  fence  and  dis- 
coursed of  the  shortness  of  the  time  since  the 
date  fixed  for  the  creation,  measured  by  human 
lives.  "Why,"  he  said,  "  sixty  old  women  like 
Nabby  Kettle"  (a  very  old  woman  in  Concord), 
*'  taking  hold  of  hands,  would  span  the  whole  of 
it."  He  repeats  this  in  one  of  his  books,  adding, 
*'  They  would  be  but  a  small  tea-party,  but  their 
gossip  would  make  universal  history." 

Other  Well-known  Writers. 

Another  man  who  was  famous  as  a  writer  went 
to  school,  and  afterward  tended  store  in  Concord 
in  my  childhood.  This  was  George  H.  Derby, 
better  known  as  John  Phoenix.  He  was  also  very 
fond  of  small  boys.  I  remember  his  making  me 
what  I  thought  a  wonderful  and  beautiful  work 
of  art,  by  taking  a  sheet  of  stiff  paper  of  what 
was  called  elephant  foolscap,  and  folding  it  into 
a  very  small  square,  and  then  with  a  penknife 
cutting  out  small  figures  of  birds  and  beasts. 
When  the  sheet  was  opened  again  these  were 
repeated  all  over  the  sheet,  and  made  it  appear 
like  a  piece  of  handsome  lace. 

He  did  not  get  along  very  well  with  his  em- 
ployer, who  was  a  snug  and  avaricious  person. 
He  would  go  to  Boston  once  a  week  to  make  his 
purchases,  leaving  Derby  in  charge  of  the  store. 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  37 

Derby  would  lie  down  at  full  length  on  the 
counter,  get  a  novel,  and  was  then  very  unwilling 
to  be  disturbed  to  wait  on  customers.  If  a  little 
girl  came  in  with  a  tin  kettle  to  get  some 
molasses,  he  would  say  the  molasses  was  all  out, 
and  they  would  have  some  more  next  week.  So 
the  employer  found  that  some  of  his  customers 
were  a  good  deal  annoyed. 

Mr.  Alcott  and  the  Children. 

Another  rather  famous  writer  who  lived  in 
Concord  in  my  time  was  Mr.  A.  Bronson  Alcott. 
He  used  to  talk  to  the  children  in  the  Sunday 
school,  and  occasionally  would  gather  them 
together  in  an  evening  for  a  long  discourse.  I 
am  ashamed  to  say — and  I  hope  you  will  all 
consider  this  in  the  strictest  confidence,  not  to  be 
repeated  anywhere — that  we  thought  Mr.  Alcott 
rather  stupid.  He  did  not  make  any  converts  to 
his  theories  among  the  boys. 

He  once  told  us  that  it  was  wicked  to  eat 
animal  food ;  that  the  animal  had  the  same 
right  to  his  life  that  we  had  to  ours,  and  we  had 
no  right  to  destroy  the  lives  of  any  of  God's 
creatures  for  our  own  purposes.  He  lived  only 
on  vegetable  food,  as  he  told  us.  But  he  had  on 
at  the  time  a  very  comfortable  pair  of  calfskin 
boots,  and  the  boys  could  not  reconcile  his  notion 
that  it  was  wicked  to  kill  animals  to  eat,  with 
killing  animals  that  he  might  wear  their  hides. 
When  such  inconsistencies  were  pointed  out  to 
him  he  gave  a  look  of  mild  rebuke  at  the  auda- 
cious offender,  and  w^ent  on  with  his  discourse 
as  if  nothing  had  happened. 

The  people  who  do  not  think  very  much  of 
Alcott    ought    to    speak    with    a    good    deal    of 


38  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago, 

modesty  when  they  remember  how  highly 
Kmerson  valued  him,  and  how  sure  was  Kmer- 
son's  judgment ;  but  certainly  nobody  will 
attribute  to  Alcott  much  of  the  logical  faculty. 
Kmerson  told  me  once  : 

"I  got  together  some  people  a  little  while  ago 
to  meet  Alcott  and  to  hear  him  converse.  I 
wanted  them  to  know  what  a  rare  fellow  he  was. 
But  we  did  not  get  along  very  well.  Poor  Alcott 
had  a  hard  time.  Theodore  Parker  came  all 
stuck  full  of  knives.  He  wound  himself  round 
Alcott  like  an  anaconda ;  you  could  hear  poor 
Alcott' s  bones  crunch." 

A  Story  of  Margaret  Fuller. 

Margaret  Fuller  used  to  visit  Concord  a  good 
deal,  and  at  one  time  boarded  in  the  village  for 
several  months. 

She  was  very  peculiar  in  her  ways,  and  made 
people  whom  she  did  not  like  feel  very  uncom- 
fortable in  her  presence.  She  was  not  generally 
popular,  although  the  persons  who  knew  her 
best  valued  her  genius  highly.  But  old  Doctor 
Bartlett,  a  very  excellent  and  kind  old  doctor, 
though  rather  gruff  in  manner,  could  not  abide 
her. 

One  very  dark,  stormy  night,  in  the  middle 
of  the  night,  the  doctor  was  called  out  of  bed 
by  a  sharp  knocking  at  the  door.  He  got  up 
and  put  his  head  out  of  the  window,  and  said, 
"Who's  there?  What  do  you  want?"  He 
was  answered  by  a  voice  in  the  darkness  below, 
"Doctor,  how  much  camphire  can  anybody 
take  by  mistake  without  its  killing  them?" 
To  which  the  reply  was,  "Who's  taken  it?" 
And  the  answer  was,  "Margaret  Fuller."     The 


A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago.  39 

doctor  answered,  in  great  wrath,  as  he  slammed 
down  the  window  and  returned  to  bed,  **A 
peck!  " 

A  Personal  Word. 

I  have  not,  in  this  paper,  undertaken  an  auto- 
biography. I  am  afraid,  if  I  were  to  do  that,  it 
would  be  rather  a  sad  story.  I  said  something 
just  now  which  I  asked  you  to  consider  as  in 
strict  confidence.  What  I  am  going  to  say,  I 
hope  none  of  you  will  ever  tell  to  anybody.  I 
should  feel  dreadfully  to  have  it  get  into  the 
Democratic  papers.  The  old  doctor,  of  whom  I 
have  already  spoken,  in  the  town  of  Concord, 
one  of  the  worthiest  and  kindliest  of  men,  but 
who  was  a  very  outspoken  person,  said,  after  my 
two  oldest  brothers  and  I  had  grown  up,  that 
"Samuel  Hoar's  three  boys  used  to  be  the  biggest 
little  rascals  in  Concord ;  but  they  all  seem  to 
have  turned  out  pretty  well."  But  as  I  said. 
Keep  this  a  profound  secret. 

I  am  afraid  these  disconnected  stories  will  not 
go  far  to  convey  to  you  the  picture  which  is  very 
clear  in  my  own  mind  of  the  life  of  a  New 
England  boy  in  a  country  town  sixty  years  ago. 
It  was  a  very  simple  and  plain,  yet  I  think  a 
very  noble  life.  The  town  was  as  absolute  a 
democracy,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  as  was 
ever  upon  earth.  The  people,  old  and  young, 
constituted  one  great  family.  They  esteemed 
each  other  because  of  personal  character,  and 
not  on  account  of  wealth,  or  social  position,  or 
holding  office.  The  poorest  boy  in  town  was 
the  equal  of  the  richest  in  the  school  and  in  the 
playground.  They  had  all  that  was  needed  for 
comfort  in  life. 


40  A  Boy  Sixty  Years  Ago, 

If  I  were  to  live  my  life  over  again  I  should  not 
want  anything  more,  and  I  think  all  my  readers 
will  do  well  to  teach  themselves  not  to  care  for 
anything  more.  Your  happiness  in  this  world 
will  come  from  what  you  are,  and  not  from  what 
you  own.  You  do  not  need  wealth  or  luxury,  if 
you  have  decent  clothes  and  do  good,  honest 
work  in  the  world,  and  have  enough  to  eat  and 
drink,  good  schools,  good  books  to  read,  good 
health,  and  good  parents  and  brothers  and 
sisters  and  friends,  who  will  not  do  a  mean 
thing  —  these  are  the  things  that  make  life 
worth  living.  Everything  but  one  beyond  these 
is  apt  to  spoil  men  and  spoil  the  pleasure  of 
life. 

There  is  one  thing  beside,  greater  than  all. 
That  is  a  country  that  you  can  love,  and  that 
you  are  ready  and  willing  to  live  for  and  to  die 
for. 

Every  American  has  that.  I  hope  you  will  all 
learn  by  heart  the  noble  history  of  your  country, 
and  will  be  ready  when  your  time  comes  to  take 
the  government  of  it,  and  make  it  better  and 
nobler  still. 


The  Youth's  Companion, 

An  Illustrated  Family  Paper. 

$1.75  A  YEAR. 


Published  at 

20I  Columbus  Avenue, 
Boston,  Massachusetts. 


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